In hospitals and other facilities, tracking medical instruments and other parts can be challenging and time-intensive. For example, during surgery, a medical instrument (e.g., a clip) may be inadvertently left in the body; and the patient may be stitched up with the instrument left behind. Similarly, an instrument may be recognized as missing after surgery, which raises the question of whether the instrument may have been left in the body. Medical staff may then need to subject the patient to x-ray imaging to look for a missing instrument after surgery; and unnecessary patient exposure to x-rays may be undesirable.
Moreover, may medical instruments may go missing from a medical facility (e.g., a hospital) every day with little ability to track the history of the instrument or even to know what may be missing, and the usage or servicing history of an instrument may not be easily tracked.